Brutally Effective Negotiation Tactics | Ep 847
episodePreviously titled “Brutally Effective Negotiation Tactics | Ep 874” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
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What are the five brutally effective negotiation tactics?
Over my career acquiring and scaling businesses for acquisition.com, I've done a lot of deals. I want to put the five most brutally effective tactics that I know in one video for you. A lot of these things I didn't actually learn from books. I learned them from mentors and actually seeing them do it and learning it like in the streets, in the real world. Most itty bitty tactics like don't actually drive the needle, but these five actually have gotten deals done and improve my situation or standing in the deal. So let's dive in. There's three contexts that you're going to use each of these skills with. The first is with employees, and this goes both ways. If you're an employee trying to negotiate with an employer, then that applies.
How can negotiation tactics be applied in different contexts?
The second is going to be vendors. Now, this also applies if you're a vendor who's dealing with customers. And then third, you've got what I would consider partners. This is when you do deals, M&A, things like that, investment. So these are kind of the three big vectors that all of this stuff applies to. So if you're like, I'm not sure if this will work for me, You for sure, even if you don't have a business, you are an employee, and if you are an employee and you don't wanna use that, you certainly have vendors that come to your house and do things for you. This is the fruit of life. You have to negotiate, and you get what you negotiate, not what you deserve. That may sound not fair, but it's also the truth.
Number one, this is actually from a Harvard Business School thing that I learned from Sharan Sarvata. It's called BATNA. Now, I didn't know the fancy term for it, but it means best alternative to a negotiated agreement. So what does this really mean? Research has shown that having strong BATNA, basically a strong alternative, gives you significant leverage in negotiations. Negotiation is all about leverage. London Business School did a study and they found that negotiators who know their alternatives set higher aspirations so they ask for more, they make more aggressive first offers, and they negotiate ultimately better outcomes. So your BATNA serves as almost like an anchor, a counter anchor that you have in the back of your mind of what you're negotiating with.
What is BATNA and why is it important in negotiations?
It's kind of like a source of power. It's a decision standard that you only accept deals that are better than your best alternative. You can think about this in any setting. So if you're with a girl and you know that you can only date tens, if a seven comes along, you're like, Well, my alternative is a 10, so I'm only dealing with 10s. If someone says, hey, I'll be willing to buy all of your inventory for 10 bucks a piece, and somebody else comes along and says, I'll do it for nine, instead of just saying no, you're like, I'll do it for 10.50, or I'll do it for 11. You can edge them up, but if you know that it's not gonna matter, then it doesn't matter. So I'll tell you something that recently happened.
I'm right now negotiating to buy a home. It's something that Layla wants and it's aggressive. We already have a home that we like a lot. I really like the house we have. My best alternative to buying this house is doing nothing and just enjoying the home that I already have. They're in a terrible position because right now I know that they haven't had anyone else who's bid on the property because it's aggressively priced, I'll put it that way. It's them versus me and it's who wants it less. The reason bad is so important, because you're like, okay, I get that. How do I have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement? You win negotiations, and I'm starting with this one, because I think it's all five of this, or six or ones that I'm going to show you are going to be so important. But this one is probably the greatest source of psychological power. And you do this before you sit down to the table. Me going to look at these homes, I know I don't have to buy the homes.
How does having alternatives influence negotiation outcomes?
When I was selling gym launch and prestige labs, I was like, I can just keep the businesses, and they'll just keep making me money. I don't need to sell them. And from negotiating for that position, you only want to sell when you don't want to sell. You want to buy when you don't want to buy because you have something else.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the five brutally effective negotiation tactics?
0:00–0:36
2
How can negotiation tactics be applied in different contexts?
0:36–1:51
3
What is BATNA and why is it important in negotiations?
1:51–3:11
4
How does having alternatives influence negotiation outcomes?
3:11–4:38
5
Why is it crucial to negotiate from a position of strength?
4:38–9:58
6
What role does anchoring play in negotiations?
9:58–13:56
7
How can you effectively counter-offer in a negotiation?
13:56–17:07
8
What common mistakes do negotiators make?
17:07–22:12
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Game with Alex Hormozi
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